The recent upsurge in e-commerce whereby a consumer accesses a website over the internet to purchase goods for delivery to the home, office or other site has created a need for secure systems/methods for scheduling and tracking deliveries of the purchased items, as well as for providing a safe and secure site for receipt of the goods when they are delivered to an unoccupied site. The convenience of being able to avoid making trips to a brick and mortar store or outlet to purchase goods, and having the goods delivered to home, office or other site is off-set by the problems surrounding the secure delivery of the goods to the purchaser. If the purchaser is not available on-site to receive the goods, delivery must either be re-scheduled or the goods must be left unsecured at the site, thereby being subject to theft or damage.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,903,832 describes a system and method which enables the delivery, and safe and secure receipt of purchased items or other goods, at an unattended site.
The patented method and system enables the delivery of at least one purchased or ordered item to a locked storage appliance, associated with a corresponding customer, the method comprising, following the purchase or order of the at least one item, determining the availability of the locked storage appliance to receive the delivery at one or more times, identifying a time interval during which the delivery can be made, and sending to the locked storage appliance an access signal allowing a delivery agent access to the locked storage appliance only during the time interval for delivery thereto of the at least one item.
Copending patent application Ser. No. 14/544,035, filed Feb. 2, 2015, describes an improvement in the patented system wherein the delivery agent is a drone aircraft.